SEB 2021 Ballot
Cast your BALLOT here
The Election Closes Wednesday, August 4, 2021
Candidates for President: Wendy Applequist and Morgan Ruelle
Candidates for Council Members: Irene Teixidor-Toneu, Alexandra Towns, and Annie Virnig
Candidates for President
Candidate Bio
I am an associate scientist in the Missouri Botanical Garden's William L. Brown Center, where I have worked since 2000. I am a plant taxonomist with primary research interests in the taxonomy, authentication, and quality control of medicinal plants, flora of Madagascar, and botanical nomenclature; additional interests include historical ethnobotany and local sustainable development. I'm a longtime member of SEB; I served in the past as Treasurer (2 terms) and as an associate editor of Economic Botany, and am currently the book review editor and chair of the book awards committee. To me, the Society offers unique value because of its members' intellectual diversity, friendliness, and respect for traditional knowledge and the relevance of their research to human welfare. We all know that the world’s current trajectory is unsustainable. One of my goals as President would be to preserve and develop the virtual avenues of participation that began during the pandemic, which facilitate broader participation while reducing members’ carbon footprints. Another would be to attract more members whose work could be categorized as “economic botany”; this field, marginalized as research with practical relevance became dominated by specialized sciences serving global industries, may offer many local solutions in the future.
Candidate Bio
I am an assistant professor at Clark University in the department of International Development, Community & Environment. My teaching and research focus on how plant diversity and ecological knowledge contribute to food security under an increasingly variable climate. I have conducted long-term collaborative research projects with communities in the Standing Rock Nation and Ethiopia. My most recent work in Ethiopia investigates whether government policies and market pressures are driving farmers to abandon climate-adapted traditional varieties of legume crops.
I attended my first SEB meeting in Xalapa, Mexico, in 2010. I have always been impressed by the diversity of interests and expertise within our society, as well as our shared commitment to social and environmental justice. This past year, as chair of the Ethics Committee, I have been collaborating with our sister societies (the ISE and SOE) on initiatives to expand the diversity of voices in our membership and leadership. As a member of the Council, I would focus on revitalizing our international chapters, increasing access to our publications, enhancing our mentorship programs, and most importantly, growing our membership. I am excited to contribute to the SEB by making our community more accessible and inclusive.
Candidates for Council
Candidate Bio
Irene Teixidor-Toneu is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway. Irene studies the past and present dynamics between cultural and natural systems in Scandinavia with a focus on developing inter- and trans-disciplinary methodologies from quantitative modelling to citizen science. She has previously worked in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco during her PhD and as a scientific advisor for the Global Diversity Foundation, contributing to projects for the conservation of biocultural diversity together with local academics and community members. Mother of two, partner of a bioinformatician, mediocre gardener, and keen reader of environmental philosophy, her vision of ethnobotany is that of a discipline that can bridge the gaps across research fields, sustainable development goals, and human and non-human communities for a future of flourishing co-existence.
Candidate Bio
Part of the SEB Mission is to make the results of ethnobotanical research available to not only the scientific community but also the general public. Present-day society is largely “plant blind” and I see real opportunity to share our scientific knowledge more broadly with non-academic communities and in more practical applications.
My relationship with plants goes back to childhood, in the woods in upstate New York, where I blended “witches’ concoctions” of wild flowers and ferns. These early plant interactions led to MS research on indigenous vegetables in Niger and PhD research on traditional medicine in Benin and Gabon. With my current employer, Catholic Relief Services, I’ve carried out assessments on traditional vegetables to improve food security programs in Malawi, Zambia, Madagascar, Uganda and Niger. I also teach a Plants, People, and Society course at Towson University.
Since I first joined SEB in 2010, I’ve regularly attended conferences, served as a Student Representative, received the 2013 Edmund H. Fulling Award, and was guest editor of the 2018 special issue of Economic Botany. I currently am an associate editor of the journal. As a non-academic member of SEB, I bring a practical perspective closely connected to the application of ethnobotanical knowledge. I would be honored to bring this experience to the SEB Council to diversity our outreach and further our mission.
Candidate Bio
I became a member of the Society for Economic Botany nearly ten years ago as a graduate student in the joint program between the City University of New York and The New York Botanical Garden, where my research brought together phytochemistry, genetics, and ethnobotany to study community use and management of neotropical blueberries (queremes) in Colombia. As a former president of the SEB student council, I had the opportunity to engage with diverse members across the society and explore ways in which students could contribute to the activities and mission of SEB. I was honored to receive the President’s Award for my work supporting the SEB student network.
Ethnobotany has always inspired me as a way to bring together traditional knowledge, scientific knowledge, and community engagement to promote place-based approaches to conservation and sustainable development. This took me to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) following my graduate studies, where I began work with the Equator Initiative, which recognizes and advances the work of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) within the UN system. I currently work at the intersection of ethnobotany, sustainable development, and policy, supporting governments and IPLCs to use spatial data to support action for nature, climate change, and sustainable development. My portfolio includes initiatives such as the UN Biodiversity Lab and work to map Essential Life Support Areas.
I would be honored to serve as part of the SEB council. As someone working outside of academia, I believe that it is important to connect the powerful body of research and engagement across SEB to similar work going on through the UN, government, and civil society spheres. Continuing to build the society as a leader in research at the intersection of plants, people, and the environment, combined with creating alliances to explore how this research can be connected to other initiatives focused on policy and implementation offers a powerful avenue to address our planetary crises.